43^ AN ESSAY ON ' ^ r'---^" 



less to repeat his arguments; which are forcible, and convincing, rising 

 naturally out of the account given..of . the Lama's survey by its publishers. 



It is indeed evident, that the sources and subsequent course of a river 

 could not be laid down by the ablest geographer, with any approach to 

 accuracy, from oral information, collected on the opposite side of a moun- 

 tain, or rather chain of lofty mountains, in which it was said to take its 

 origin. That such information, hastily gathered by inexperienced geo- 

 grapherSj as the Lamas were, must be grossly inaccurate, seems indisputa- 

 ble. They do not pretend to have seen any part of what they here de- 

 scribe» Their route, as traced m T)\j Halde's map of their survey, does 

 not approach nearer to their celebrated lake Mapama than a quarter of 9. 

 degree, and terminates at a mountain marked M.Kentais; which, as be- 

 fore remarked, is the name of a chain of mountains, known to the Chinese 

 as the western range in Tibet, and which is exhibited in Du Halde's maps 

 and in the still ruder copy of the Lamas original delineation, published 

 by,Sou,ciET,* .as intervening between their last station and the lake in 

 question. In short all that is fairly deducible as authentick information, 

 is, that the .La?«^5 reached the chain of mountains which forms the south- 

 western boundary of Tibet; and halting at the foqt of the range, learned, 

 from the inquiries which they there made, that the Ganges takes its rise 

 In th^ .opposite side of that chain of mountains. But the whole of their 

 sketch of the river's course, from the s6th. degree of longitude (from 

 Pekin) where their route terminates, to the 43d, in which they make the 

 two furthest tranches of the Ganges turn due south after a westerly 

 course, and thence return by an easterly course to the same longitude, 

 with httle difference of latitude, must be deemed vague and imaginary, 



* SouciET, observations vol. 1. p. 1S8. and 208. pi. 8. %. 5. d.^d..BernQuUi^o\^ .2- 

 Carte geuerale^ fi..^, 6. 



